


What You Don't Know

by rain_sleet_snow



Series: Pawn Takes Queen [6]
Category: Primeval
Genre: Multi, Polyamory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-20
Updated: 2011-08-20
Packaged: 2018-03-07 18:06:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,483
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3178081
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rain_sleet_snow/pseuds/rain_sleet_snow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lorraine’s former boss (and employer of one current partner) gets a nasty shock, and Lorraine’s other former boss (and employer of other current partner) is amused at his expense.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What You Don't Know

**Author's Note:**

> Chilcott is Fifi's creation, and she's responsible for making me think of him as a human being. :P

            Contrary to popular belief, Chilcott didn’t actually drink his employees’ blood. He suspected Niall Richards of spreading that particular rumour, and didn’t blame him for doing so so much as he blamed gullible younger operatives for believing him. Nor did it upset him; he had a reputation to maintain, after all.

 

            Still. Chilcott had a heart. He _cared_.

 

            So when he spotted one of his former operatives across the room – a young woman who’d left the service rather abruptly after a clusterfuck of an op, by special transfer, without availing herself of the counselling Chilcott had suggested or indeed listening to a word Chilcott had said – at a reception where the wine was poor and the company worse, he immediately went over to say hello.

 

            “Lorraine! How nice to see you.”

 

            Lorraine spun neatly on the heels of her smart court shoes, green dress (considerably sexier and more daring than he would ever have suspected her of wearing) flaring around her. “Jeffrey!” Her guarded smile showed that she was at least a little pleased to see him, and she shook hands readily enough. “How are you?”

 

            “Same old,” Chilcott said. “You?”

 

            “Oh,” Lorraine said, and a proper smile twitched at the corner of her mouth. She wasn’t unattractive, Chilcott noted. She didn’t look like the sort of thing to drive a nutcase like Niall Richards mad for her, but he’d been her boss; how would he know? “Very well.”

 

            “What are you doing now? I heard you left Lester’s racket.”

 

            He’d heard a thing or two more than that, but considering the number of people with no security clearance to speak of and flapping ears close by, he refrained from mentioning it. Especially given the way the glow faded out of her face, that was a wise choice.

 

            “Yes,” she said simply. “I work at the Treasury now.”

 

            “Oh. Good. Keep the buggers in line,” Chilcott said, for lack of anything else to say.

 

            Lorraine checked her watch. “I’m so sorry, Jeffrey, but I was just leaving. Other commitments – and I only got off a flight from Brussels a few hours ago; I’m exhausted.”

 

            “Don’t work yourself to death,” Chilcott told her, and her expression turned professional – professionally ignoring him. “Bloody bad habit of yours; how many times did Richards chase you out of the office, when you were working together?”

 

            “Niall admires my devotion to duty,” Lorraine said blandly.

 

            “Well, no-one’s going to die if you take a step back. Not at the Treasury, anyway,” Chilcott retorted. He had the vague feeling that everything he said to her was sliding away - in one ear and out the other. Still, he noted the present tense; so Richards had managed to get back in touch with her after all. You could never be quite sure what that bastard was up to off duty, let alone whether he liked it or not, and to be honest, Chilcott preferred not to know. “Have a good evening, Lorraine.”

 

            “You too, Jeffrey,” she said, and went away, unhooking her coat from a rack and wrapping it around herself, before going out into the hotel’s main lobby.

 

            As a matter of mild interest, Chilcott waited a beat and followed her, crossing the lobby without looking at her and going straight into the room opposite, although he felt her head turn and her glance at him suspiciously. The room opposite turned out to be a library, dark and empty, which suited Chilcott fine. He tucked himself into a corner by one of the wide sash windows, where he would be largely concealed by the heavy curtains and the darkness.

 

            Lorraine presumably went out onto the hotel’s broad steps, and came into view as she crossed the road, heading for a car waiting just outside a streetlamp’s glowing circle. As she reached it, driver and front passenger doors opened, and two men got out; both tall and dark, one slightly shorter than the other with much longer, but still neat, hair, both casually dressed. The slightly shorter man stepped forward and drew Lorraine into a kiss; one of her hands had already reached out to the other, who took it and kept hold of it. The kiss ended, and Lorraine said something which made the men look at each other seriously: then the one she’d kissed grinned, a white flash of teeth in the dim light, and the other shrugged. Lorraine shook her head, and the shorter man climbed back into the driver’s seat. The other lingered outside the car, exchanging a few more words with her, before simply leaning his forehead against hers for a moment and opening the front passenger’s door for her, an oddly possessive guiding hand on the small of her back. He then went to open one of the back doors, and paused with it open and his hand resting on it – then turned into the glow of the streetlamp, and faced Chilcott, lurking quietly in the library.

 

            Chilcott recognised the man, and froze in shock.

 

            Niall Richards treated him to a shark-like grin, and raised two fingers. Then he got into the car and slammed the door shut, and it took off into the darkness.

 

            Chilcott slumped against the wall, and recognised in himself an intense desire for whisky, neat, now. He waited a few moments, then went purposefully back into the reception room and made the appropriate demand of the bartender, who looked slightly surprised, but provided him with the drink.

 

            James Lester, with his infallible nose for trouble, wandered up and politely requested a second glass of red wine, which the bartender provided. “Chilcott. You look like you’ve recently witnessed a murder.”

 

            “Lester. Just the man I wanted to see. _What have you done to my operative_?”

 

            Lester gave him a raised eyebrow. “Which one? Thank you.” He took his refilled glass from the bartender.

 

            “Lorraine Wickes. She was sane when she left my employ, and now -”

 

            “Oh, you’ve seen her here, then? How nice. I saw her earlier, but she said she was only staying briefly. Something about Brussels, I didn’t ask.” Lester sipped leisurely at his wine. “When last I checked, she was in perfect mental health, insofar as that’s possible, considering her somewhat chequered career.”

 

            “I just saw her leave,” Chilcott said flatly.

 

            “With Captain Becker?” Lester enquired sweetly. “I agree that he isn’t to my taste – a man who owns six chessboards isn’t all there, as far as I’m concerned - but I’m not sure embarking on a serious relationship with him is evidence of mental instability.”

 

            “With him _and Niall Richards_.” Chilcott put his glass down on the counter a little harder than necessary. “Another.”

 

            “Watch out, old boy,” Lester said, drier than the Saharan desert, as the bartender obliged. “This is descending into gossip.”

 

            “Is not,” Chilcott said, catching sight of Mackie across the room and thinking to himself that all that was required was for Lorraine’s current boss at the Treasury, whoever they were, to pitch up, introduce themselves and join this knitting circle. “It’s strategic information gathering, and ensuring the mental health of a valued operative. Lester, what the fuck is going on?”

 

            “She’s not an operative any more,” Lester reminded him, clearly choosing to ignore the germane part of the question. “Give her an assignment, and you’ll find yourself with the business end of Captain Becker’s shotgun in your face. He’s rather protective.”

 

            “For fuck’s sake, Lester. Be serious!”

 

            “No,” Lester said, with unsurpassed sweetness. “I, like all sensible human beings, operate on the basis that if I ask Miss Wickes no questions she will tell me no lies.”

 

            “Oh?” Chilcott said, draining his second whisky. “And how do you class Becker and Richards?”

 

            “Reckless idiots with excellent taste,” Lester replied, face and voice softening slightly. “I don’t propose to trouble myself with it, so long as all of them are happy and none of them are killing people.”

 

            The bartender dropped a glass he’d been cleaning for the last five minutes.

 

            “And let that be a lesson to you not to eavesdrop,” Lester added severely, presumably addressing the bartender. Then – thank God – he went away.

 

            Chilcott stared into the bottom of his glass for a few minutes and finally set it down on the counter, much more gently than before. The bartender was on his hands and knees, clearing up the broken glass; Chilcott walked away from him and the reception and the hotel itself, heading for the nearest large road and the first available taxi.

 

            He caught one without much difficulty, gave the driver his address and got into the back.

 

            _Soldier, spook and civil servant_ , he thought to himself, absently putting his seatbelt on and staring out at night-time London without seeing it. _Jesus Christ_.

 

            “Sorry, mate?” the taxi driver said, and Chilcott realised he’d said the last bit out loud.

 

            “Colleagues,” he said with a sigh. “You know how it is.”

 


End file.
